Page:History of the Ojibway Nation.djvu/509

Rh at Gull Lake, and some of the Ojibways moved there with five chiefs.

Alexander Ramsey, as Governor of Minnesota Territory, was ex-officio Superintendent of Indian Affairs. In June, 1850, he visited the Ojibway country of the Upper Mississippi, with William Warren as interpreter, to select a suitable place for an agency, and the sub-agent at La Pointe removed to Sandy Lake.

During the month of April, 1850, there was a renewal of hostilities between the Sioux and Ojibways on lands that had been ceded to the United States. A Sioux war-prophet at Red Wing village dreamed that he ought to raise a war party. Announcing the fact, a number volunteered to go, and several from the Kaposia village joined them. The leader of the party was a worthless fellow who the year before had been confined in the guard-house at Fort Snelling for scalping his wife.

Passing up the valley of the Saint Croix, a few miles above Stillwater, they discovered on the snow the marks of a keg and foot-prints. From these, they knew that Ojibways were returning from a whiskey shop. Following their trail, they found on the Apple River, a tributary of the Saint Croix, a party of Ojibways in one large wigwam. Waiting till daybreak, on the 2d of April the Sioux fired on the unsuspecting inmates, fifteen in all, and none were left alive, except a boy, who was taken prisoner. The next day the Sioux came to Stillwater, and danced the scalp-dance around the captive, striking him in the face at times with the scarcely cold scalps of his relatives. The child was then taken to Kaposia, the Sioux village below Saint Paul, and adopted by the chief.

Governor Ramsey immediately took measures to send the boy to his friends. At a conference held at the Gov-